Yogic-Sufı¯ ¯ Homologies: The Case of the “SixPrinciples” Yoga of Naropa and the Kubrawiyyamuwo_1320 268..286

Toby MayerInsititute of Ismaili StudiesLondonUnited Kingdom

“Don’t look for an outer place of solitude;The body itself is a divine mansion (mandala

! !).

Don’t look elsewhere for the deity;The mind itself, unborn and unperishing,Is the family Buddha and guru.”

Siddharajñı

“However much the angels examined the form of Adam, they were unable todiscover the compendium of mysteries that he in truth was.”

Najm al-Dın Daya al-Razı

Yoga, in Eliade’s definition, is “the effectual techniques for gaining liberation,”1

i.e., liberation from illusion (Sansk., maya, Tib., sgyu mal ) and the great vorticesof contingent existence (Sansk., samsara

!¯ , Tib., ‘khor-ba). It is not immediately

clear how such a model might relate to Islam, a religious system articulated in terms ofthe radical answerability of the creature to the Creator within a framework of sacred law(Arabic, al-sharı ‘a). Yet insights might be gained from an heuristic suspension of thedichotomy of an Islamic paradigm of servanthood and an Indic one of liberation.Concepts of transcendental law arguably inform the Indic “liberation” traditions(whether Buddhist or Hindu), as expressed, for instance, in ideas like dharma and theinexorable mechanisms of karma; equally, a concept of liberation informs the Islamiclegal paradigm, as expressed, for instance, in the deep concern of Islamic ethics withpersonal and societal salvation (Arabic, najat) — an individual and collective transfer toParadise. In addition to framing yoga as a project of emancipation, Eliade defines itabove in terms of methods or “effectual techniques,” and a yogic reading of Islam in suchterms seems similarly fertile. Islam’s nomocratic model is not unrelated to karma-yoga,the yogic methodology based on righteous activity. Moreover, the Islamic nomos — therevealed codes of the Sharı ‘a — itself emerges from the (so to speak) “yogic” praxis ofthe Prophet, such as his methods of prayer, fasting, vigil, seclusion, and his entry intovisionary states. The law assumes these elements to the extent that they formed the

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

© 2010 Hartford Seminary.Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148USA.

268

original matrix and instrumentality of its revelation. This leads to a historical duality,enshrined in the distinction of exoteric clergy (‘ulama ’ al zahir-

!¯ ) and esoteric

clergy (‘ulama ’al batin-!

¯ ) — repositories of the two aspects of the Prophetic legacy. Thenomos aspect was safeguarded and explored by the Muslim legists or exoteric clergy,while the “yogic” aspect was primarily safeguarded and explored by the Sufıs¯ ¯ oresoteric clergy.

Within the vastly complex Sufı¯ traditions in question, it is probably in the order(tarıqa¯ ) known as the Kubrawiyya that

!Sufism s’¯ yogic trend emerges most clearly.

Though this was undoubtedly stimulated by certain historical factors, it is here arguedthat direct appropriation, importation, and textual transmission of teachings fromnon-Islamic sources had a merely marginal role in the Kubrawı phenomenon — againstthe diagnostic reflex of earlier European language scholarship in its project of exposing“origins,” and source-investigation. Of course, textual materials from the Buddhist andHindu world did presently make their way into Arabic and Persian.2 But this explanationseems as crude as it is tidy. Less clear-cut, but surely more decisive, was the cumulativeimpact of an internal, “organic” development of Islamic mysticism, through which therehad been a gradual elaboration of relevant elements (e.g., ascetic and meditationaltechniques, analysis of visionary apperceptions, and thaumaturgy, in contrast with, say,purely ethical aspects). That the proximity of Indic yogic traditions, but also Turkishshamanistic and Iranian Mazdean cultures, predisposed eastern

!Sufism¯ to elaborate such

features, while likely, should not be simply viewed as a process of “borrowing.” Rather,the challenge of these competing models perhaps provoked local Sufı¯ teachers tostress and explore these possibilities intrinsic to the Islamic tradition itself, possibilitiesrooted in the Qur’an, early Muslim tradition, dimensions of the Prophet’s ownspirituality, and in their own tested experience as Muslim mystics.

The stimulus to develop comparable internal virtualities intensifies after the triumphof the Mongols and in particular their Iranian branch, the Il-Khans. The Kubrawiyya’sformative milieu is the Il-Khanid empire, in which, for the best part of the 13th–14th

century CE (AH 7th–8th century), the Iranian regions witnessed an unprecedentedintrusion of Buddhist scholars and practitioners (Persian, bakhshı, pl. bakhshiyan, fromSanskrit bhiksu

!, “mendicant”) from centers to the east. There are, for example, records

of inter-religious debates (Arabic,munazarat!

¯ ¯ ) held at the court of the Il-Khan emperor,Arghun (regnat AH 683-90/1284–1291 CE), who was strongly committed to Buddhism(designated Shakmuniyya in contemporary Arabic and Persian sources, i.e., the doctrineof Sakyamuni).3 These bakhshiyan represented traditions we would now consider aTibeto-Mongol form of Buddhism, but which in the period in question had not yetbecome extinct in its original Indian habitat. Though the major north Indian Buddhistuniversities of Nalanda and Vikramasıla had been destroyed by Muhammad

!b. Bakhtiyar

al-Khaljı as early as 1203 CE, some bakhshiyan close to the Il-Khans are known to havehad connections with Indian centers of learning, such as a certain Bakhshı Parinda whohad particular influence on Arghun himself.4 This Parinda is on record as part of amonastic community in Somnath on the Kathiawar coast of Gujerat.5

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

269© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

While Parinda was apparently respected by and even friendly with the greatKubrawı sheikh ‘Ala’ al-Dawla al-Simnanı (d. 736/1336), the Kubrawiyya were far fromuniversalistic (a fortiori, syncretistic)Sufı¯ currents and were instead staunch promotersof Islam’s claims to exclusive validity. This is borne out by the case of numerous Kubrawımasters: from the death in Khwarazm of Najm al-Dın Kubra, the order’s very eponymand founder, fighting the pagan Mongol forces in 618/1221, to pronouncements by hisdisciple Najm al-Dın Daya al-Razı (d. 654/1256) in his Mirsad

!¯ al-‘Ibad, to denunciations

of rival faiths by the aforementioned ‘Ala’ al-Dawla al-Simnanı in texts like his ChihilMajlis, to the three missionary journeys of ‘Alı al-Hamadanı (d. 786/1384) to Kashmir,where he is credited with decisively establishing Islam against Hindu and Buddhistcompetition. These and many other examples emphasise for us that the extraordinaryyogic affinities of the Kubrawiyya have little to do with intellectual porosity or anyobvious “open-mindedness” within this tarıqa¯ to the Indic yogic traditions confrontingit. But the striking comparability of Kubrawı mysticism with the rich tradition of Tibetanyoga is not pure coincidence. As suggested, it was probably partly stimulated byBuddhist competition in the Il-Khanid context, yielding forms of spirituality which, whiledeeply, indeed self-consciously, Islamic in their roots, were also unusually comparablewith Buddhist yoga.

The tradition of Buddhist yoga which seems especially relevant to this comparisonis articulated in terms of six sub-topics, six dharmas or principles (Tib., chos drug) —probably emerging from earlier Indian paradigms of “six-limbed yoga” (Sansk.,

! !Sadanga yoga- ). The “six principles” yoga is in fact traditionally viewed as a legacy ofthe Indian Mahasiddhas (“great adepts,” Tibetan, grub chen). It is in particularbelieved to have been derived from the Indian adept Tilopa (988–1069 CE), who hadbeen the disciple of a female bodhisattva, the Bengali courtesan Barima. Tilopa nexttransmitted it to another Bengali with whose name the system is chiefly associated,Naropa (1016–1100 CE), who passed it to the great Tibetan scholar of Sanskrit, MarpaLotsawa (“the translator,” 1012–1097 CE). The latter would in due course become theteacher of the famous Tibetan sage Milarepa. A body of Tibetan works on “Naropa’s sixyogas” would grow over time, for example, “The Three Inspirations” by TsongkhapaChenpo (i.e., “the Great,” 1357–1419 CE).6 Using the Tibetan nomenclature, the sixyogas are generally listed as: (1) gtum mo (literally “fierce lady”), the Tibetanequivalent of awakening the kundalinı, albeit with significant variations; (2) sgyu lus(illusory body yoga); (3) rmi lam (dream yoga); (4) ‘od gsal (clear light yoga); (5) ‘phoba (consciousness transference); and (6) bar do (yoga of the “in between” state, i.e.,death).

A strong affinity emerges in the very conceptual foundations of both this “sixprinciples” yoga and Kubrawı

!Sufism¯ . The philosophical foundations of the former in

part lie in the Yogacara school, which with the Madhyamaka school constitutes one ofthe two great movements in Mahayana thought. For argument’s sake, let us propose thebasic utility of viewing the “six principles” yoga system as, in certain specific ways, anempirical exploration of earlier Yogacara philosophy.7 A good example of this is the

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

270 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.

famous Yogacara doctrine of the “three bodies” (Trikayavada). In historical context thisemerged as a typology of buddhas, a “Buddhology,” co-ordinating historical buddhas(i.e., the nirmana kaya

!-¯ ¯ , or “conjured body”) and their unearthly equivalents (i.e.,

the sambhoga kaya!

- ¯ , or “bliss body”), as different epiphanies of ultimate reality (i.e., thedharma-kaya, or “law body”), within a single whole. The centrality of the idea ofthe “body” (kaya) in this Buddhology is highly in tune with broader yogic forms ofthought. The idea must nonetheless be stripped of its conventional somatic connotationsof contingency and limitation, and kaya is significantly sometimes glossed in Yogacaratexts simply as “basis” or “support” (asraya). In an expressive metaphor, the three bodieshave also been presented as aspects of a limitless ocean and its entire, recursive system:“The Dharma-Kaya is symbolized — for all human word-concepts are inadequate todescribe the Qualityless — as an infinite ocean, calm and without wave, whence arisemist-clouds and rainbow, which symbolize the sambhoga kaya

!- ¯ ; and the clouds,

enhaloed in the glory of the rainbow, condensing and falling as rain, symbolizethe Nirmana kaya

!-¯ ¯ .”8

Next, when we shift to the Tantric context of the “six yogas,” this Yogacara theory istypically transposed into the sphere of operative spirituality and the potential experienceof the would-be adept. It becomes, in other words, a datum of Tantric empiricism. Thisis borne out by the Tibetan nomenclature, which speaks of “taking the three kayas as thepath” (sku gsum lam ‘khyer ). What is specifically involved is the technique of the “nineblendings” or mergings, central to the “six yogas.” In this method the yogin (Tibetan,rnal ‘byor pa) achieves successive mergence (Tib., sbyor ) with, i.e., realization of, thethree bodies in his or her three primary states of waking, dream-sleep, and death(3 ¥ 3 = 9).9

The distinctively substantial and “somatic” character of this Yogacarin and Tantricdiscourse has a definite affinity with Kubrawı ways of thinking, throughout the Sufı¯order’s history and its representative texts. In its general approach, cosmology andsoteriology in effect become a kind of somatology. That is: both the map of theuniverse and the means of escape from it are conceptualised as deeply related to theform of the Sufı¯ ’s body. In later, more speculative Kubrawı discourse, these relationsare carried through in elaborate schemata, but even at the order’s inception, in theradically experience-based mysticism of Najm al-Dın Kubra himself, the trend is clear.The latter’s extraordinary analyses of visionary experience often focus on the presencewithin the Sufı¯ adept’s body of this or that “precious substance” (or “priceless jewel,”Arabic, jawhar nafıs). These substances have an on-going, existential link with theirtranscendental origins (or “mines,” Arabic, ma‘adin) with which they yearn to becompletely reunited.10 In this perspective, salvation and mystical realization amount tothe merging or re-union of the part with the whole (Arabic, ısal¯ ¯ al-juz’i ila ’l-kull ).11

The individual body of the mystic is a miniature epitome of the totality of reality andcan thus become a supernatural organ for perceptual contact with that totality. In oneastonishing, and typically mysterious, statement, Kubra says: “The mystical travellerwill similarly sense the generation of lights from the whole of his body and the veil

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

271© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

will possibly be withdrawn from the entire selfhood, so that with all of the body youwill see the All !”12

This distinctive mysticism continues in Najm al-Dın Daya Razı’s Mirsad!

¯ al-‘Ibad(“The Path of God’s Servants”), a major Persian treatment of Kubrawı teachings which,in view of its last, fifth, section, even amounts to a blueprint for a wider sacred society.In this aspect of his book, Daya discusses the different ways various social classes maymaximize God-consciousness through their particular callings — whether royalty,politicians, merchants, farmers or artisans. Be that as it may, the somatic focus so typicalof the Kubrawiyya is very clear in numerous earlier chapters of the text, such as: “TheCreation of the Human Frame,” “The Attachment of the Spirit to the Frame,” “The WisePurpose of the Attachment of the Spirit to the Frame,” and “The Cultivation of the HumanFrame.”

Thus, the human form (qalab-i insan) is the vessel of the ultimate mysteries inDaya’s teaching, as he says: “However much the angels examined the form of Adam,they were unable to discover the compendium of mysteries that he in truth was(na-mıdanistand ki ın chi majmu‘a-ıst).”13 In Daya’s characteristically Kubrawıapproach, the exterior human form is a pathway to the transcendent and ultimatelyleads, through its successively interior cortices of the soul and the heart, into theunimaginably vast “realm of spirits” (malakut-i arwah

!¯ ). The outermost cortex of the

frame is in turn the agent of acts in the world, be they righteous or evil. The ethicalcomplexion of human behaviour can thus be analyzed by him in powerfully “yogic”terms. Good acts are the final issue of a trajectory which has led from the divine, to thespiritual world, to the human heart, to the psyche, to the physical body, and finally intothe external world. Part of the function of virtuous actions is however to maintain thesupernatural pathway through which they have travelled; they are thus in a sense bothproduct and cause of the said pathway. For the gradual impact of their neglect and ofperforming bad deeds, is nothing less than the obstruction of the channel to thetranscendent.

Daya presents the dynamics of these processes in his chapter on “the Cultivation ofthe Human Frame,” as if discussing the findings of an empirical investigation: “GodAlmighty has opened a path from the malakut of spirits to the heart of His servant, laiddown another path from the heart to the soul, and made a third path from the soul to thebodily frame. Thus every gracious aid that comes to the spirit from the world of theUnseen is passed on to the heart; then some part of it is given to the soul by the heart;and finally some trace of it is bestowed by the soul on the bodily frame, causing a suitabledeed to appear there. If, conversely, some dark and carnal deed (‘amalı zulmanı yi-¯ ¯nafsanı ) should appear on the bodily frame, a trace of its darkness will affect the soul;then blackness will be transmitted from the soul to the heart; and finally a covering willcome to the spirit from the heart, veiling its luminosity like a halo around the moon.Through this veiling, the path connecting the spirit to the world of the Unseen willbecome partially closed (rah-i ruh

!¯ bi-‘alam-i ghayb basta shud), so that it will be unable

fully to contemplate that world and the gracious aid that it receives will decrease.”14

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

272 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.

The “empirical” quality of the above partly lies in the way that Daya formulates theseprocesses in terms of the radiation and obscuration of light. In chapter 17, in the thirdpart of the Mirsad

!¯ , he embarks on an involved discussion of the lights, or photic

epiphanies, inwardly experienced by the Sufı¯ . The entire discussion gives expressionto a defining feature of the Kubrawiyya: their cultivation, and close analysis, of visionaryexperiences of light. Najm al-Dın Kubra’s Fawa’ih

!directly prefigures this discussion of

Daya’s, and Simnanı will in due course carry the same analysis even further. Ultimately,it is God who is communicating Himself through this perceptible medium. As ourauthor says: “The light that is derived from God’s lights and witnessed by the heartserves to make God known to the heart: He makes Himself known by means of Himself(ta‘rıf-i

!hal i-¯ khud ham bi-khud kunad)”.15 God has here entered into the scope of the

Sufı¯ ’s perception, albeit outside any prior norms of sensory perception. Daya in factstates that forms, loci and colorations of these mystical lights “derive from the pollutionof vision by the veils of the human attributes. When the lights are seen by purespirituality, none of these attributes remains, and a colourless and formless radiance(tala’lu’ı bı-rang wa shakl ) becomes visible.”16

This statement has striking parallels in Tibetan teaching. The greatest divinity of Bön,the pre-Buddhist shamanism of Tibet, is called “the White Light” (gShen lha ‘Od dkar,pronounced Shenlha Okar ). Recall, too, that one of Naropa’s six yogas is designated“clear light yoga.” In addition, the “primal clear light” (Tibetan, ‘od gsal ) has a crucial rolein the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” (Bar do thos grol, i.e., Bardo Thödol ), the text parexcellence of “bardo yoga,” the yoga pertaining to posthumous realities and to how thesoul is to negotiate them. In the chikhai bardo, the first of the three afterlife states orbardos, the soul is said to be confronted by “the Clear Light of Reality, which is theInfallible Mind of the Dharma-Kaya.”17 The text states: “Thine own consciousness,shining, void, and inseparable from the Great Body of Radiance, hath no birth, nordeath, and is the Immutable Light . . .”18 The deceased individual is presented withthe opportunity to merge with this light and thus completely attain salvation from therevolutions of samsaric

!¯ existence, though this is rarely possible, in which case the

individual withdraws into experiences of subordinate, coloured lights such as the dullbluish-yellow light of the human world.19

The pointed concern of Tibetan spirituality in general, and Naropa’s yogas inparticular, with mystical cognitions of light, is one of its greatest similarities with theKubrawiyya. The concern with photism seems distinct from the wider, essentiallytropological, interest in light that is found in much mystical discourse, and has beennoted by eminent modern scholars of both traditions. Thus Tucci declared of the former:“In the entire course of the religious experience of Tibetan man, in all of itsmanifestations from Bön religion to Buddhism, a common fundamental trait is evident;photism, the great importance attached to light, whether as a generative principle, as asymbol of supreme reality, or as a visible, perceptible manifestation of that reality ; lightfrom which all comes forth and which is present within ourselves.”20 On the other hand,Corbin has proposed that the Kubrawiyya’s heightened interest in inner light and its

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

273© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

actual experience, amounted to a specific departure in the history of Sufism: “It seemsthat Najmoddın Kobra was the first of the Sufı¯ masters to focus his attention on thephenomena of colours, the coloured photisms that the mystic can perceive in the courseof his spiritual states. He took great pains to describe these coloured lights and tointerpret them as signs revealing the mystic’s state and degree of spiritual progress. . . This is not to say that [the Kubrawiyya’s] predecessors were unfamiliar with visionaryexperiences. Far from it. But the anonymous short work of a shaykh (which must havebeen written later than Semnanı, since it refers to him by name) bears witness to an‘orthodox’ teacher’s alarm at what seemed to him an innovation.”21

The emphatically perceptual (especially photic) character of the mysticism found inboth Tibetan yoga and the Kubrawiyya, complements a basic philosophical premisecommon to both, and neither tradition can be understood in the absence of theframework in question. Namely, a premise of idealism frees both systems to approachthe transcendent as substantial in this way, and to treat it as an experience or “percept.”It is precisely their shared assumption of the primacy of consciousness which allowsthem to approach transcendental and ultimate reality in this daring manner, withoutthereby reducing it to the material. For them, there simply is no objective materiality —only forms of consciousness. Everything is a consciousness event, inseparable frommind and characterized by interiority.

Thus, as mentioned earlier, Tibetan yoga has discernible roots in the majorMahayana philosophical orientation known as Yogacara. The latter is above alldistinguished by its emphasis on the primacy of consciousness, and is sometimes alsoknown as the Consciousness School (Sansk., Vijñanavada) or “Consciousness-onlySchool” (Sansk., Cittamatra, Tib., sems tsam pa). Perhaps the most characteristic of all itsteachings is that of the presence of some sort of ultimate noetic ground, generallyreferred to as Alaya-Vijñana, “storehouse consciousness.” It is true that earlier Westerncomparisons of Yogacarin teaching with European idealism have now been criticized onvarious grounds.22 Some scholars, however, still insist on the validity and explanatoryvalue of this parallel.23 The comparison’s validity partly depends on whether it is basedon the “orthodox” Yogacara of Sthiramati (d. 570 CE) or the “unorthodox” Yogacara ofDharmapala (d. 561 CE). The former insists on the fundamental emptiness (sunyata) ofboth external objects and consciousness — the teaching of non-substantive conscious-ness (nirakara-vijñana-vada).24 The latter however advocates a doctrine of substantive,or “real” consciousness (sakara-vijñana-vada). Mind is here viewed as the positiveground of all “external” events and the data of experience — an interpretation whichlends itself to comparison with certain types of idealism, which has a long history inEuropean thought.25

At any rate, that some variety of idealism is assumed in Tibetan yoga seems clear inits representative texts (I focus here especially on the Bardo Thödol ). When theindividual is confronted by the welter of visionary events in the second realm of death,the so-called chönyid bardo, the Thödol advises that the following verse be repeated tooneself:

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

274 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.

“. . . May I recognize whatever [visions] appear, as the reflections of mine ownconsciousness;May I know them to be of the nature of apparitions in the Bardo:When at this all-important moment [of opportunity] of achieving a great end,May I not fear the bands of Peaceful and Wrathful [deities], mine ownthought-forms.”26

In fact, the Thödol states that the very key to transcending samsaric!

¯ existence isto realize that all such experiences are internal, and are inseparable from mind: “Onobly-born, if though dost not now recognize thine own thought-forms, whatever ofmeditation or of devotion thou mayst have performed while in the human world — ifthou hast not met with this present teaching — the lights will daunt thee, the sounds willawe thee, and the rays will terrify thee. Shouldst thou not know this all-important key tothe teachings, — not being able to recognize the sounds, lights, and rays, — thou wilthave to wander in the Sangsara.”27

Towards the end of the Thödol, the arrival of the soul’s judge, the Lord of Death orYama-Raja (Tib., ‘chi-bdag) is described. Although an awesome, indeed terrifying, being,he is in reality an epiphany of none other than the boundlessly compassionateAvalokitesvara (Tib., spyan ras gzigs, i.e., “Chenrezig”). In his cross-questioning of thedead individual about his or her deeds in life, Yama-Raja has recourse to a supernaturaltechnology which the text calls the Mirror of Karma “Wherein every good and evil act isvividly reflected. Lying will be of no avail.”28 Islamic tradition of course also describes theunfaltering accuracy of the moral record with which the deceased is confronted. But theparticular correspondence of the “veridical reflector” mentioned in the Tibetan accountwith the episode now generally termed the “life review” reported by countless modernsurvivors of clinical death, is intriguing. Be that as it may, the Thödol still insists: “Apartfrom one’s own hallucinations, in reality there are no such things existing outside oneselfas Lord of Death, or god, or demon, or the Bull-headed Spirit of Death. Act so as torecognize this.”29 This “idealism” is thus the recurring refrain of the Thödol, and even inits closing stages it recommends the following meditation in the last of the death-realmsmentioned, the sidpa bardo: “Lo! All substances are mine own mind; and this mind isvacuousness, is unborn, and unceasing.”30

The Kubrawı masters advocate a remarkably similar idealism, starting with theirfounder, Najm al-Dın Kubra. The latter’s Fawa’ih

!is replete with accounts of overwhelm-

ing visionary experiences, yet states in one passage, without equivocation: “Know thatthe soul, the devil, and the angel are not things external to you (laysat ashya’akharijatan ‘anka), but you are them (bal anta hum). Likewise heaven, earth and thesedile (al-kursı ) are not things external to you, and neither is the garden of paradise,hellfire, death and life. They are simply things within you (innama hiya ashya’u fíka),and if you travel spiritually and become pure, you will see that clearly, God willing.”31

This explicit idealism — unusual in an Islamic context — recurs in a variety of ways inthe texts of Kubra’s spiritual progeny. Najm al-Dın Daya in the Mirsad

!¯ presents the same

basic point of view in a number of passages. For instance, in the third part of the work,

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

275© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

in chapter 18, Daya discusses “Unveiling and its Varieties.” This is a major discussion ofthe mystical application of the multifaceted Islamic concept of veiling. For Daya, theentire constitution of greater reality is an ordered series of veils, in accordance with theprophetic saying (hadıth¯ ): “God has seventy thousand veils of light and darkness. If Hewere to draw them aside, the glories of His face would consume everything whichbeheld Him.”32 Daya states that these veils or obstacles refer to nothing less than “all thedifferent realms of this world and the hereafter,” but he immediately goes onto proposethat they are in fact internal to the human being: “These seventy thousand realms existin man’s own nature (ın haftad hazar ‘alam dar nihad-i insan mawjud ast); he has aneye corresponding to each realm by means of which he beholds it, insofar as it isunveiled to him . . . Man consists in a union of these realms.”33

Simnanı, for his part, expresses a similar viewpoint in one of his most distinctivere-interpretations of Sufı¯ principles. The venerable Sufı¯ (originally Hermetic andNeoplatonic) principle of the homology of the human being and the universe, themicrocosm and the macrocosm, is captured in the formula: “The universe is a greathuman being and the human being is a little universe” (al-kawnu insanun kabırunwa’l-insanu kawnun

!saghirun¯ ).34 But Simnanı daringly inverts the structure of this

relationship. For him it is not that the human being is a little world corresponding with,and contained by, the greater world outside, but the other way around. The humanbeing is the greater world which contains the external universe — the outside is inside!As Jamal Elias expresses Simnanı’s inversion: “Although the physical realm appears to belarger than the spiritual one, the reverse is true. The physical world, with its visible andinvisible dimensions, souls and horizons, and everything else that is with it, is amicrocosmic human being, while the human being is a macrocosmic world. The spiritualrealm, which is the world that lies within the body, is the macrocosm of the physicalworld, and the physical world, which appears to be larger than the body, is amicrocosm.”35 Simnanı’s perspective here is clearly a permutation of Kubrawı idealism,with external reality as content, and human consciousness as container.

Kubrawı!Sufism¯ and Tibetan Yoga not only bear comparison in theoretical premises

like these, but also in their actual spiritual practices. In particular, total isolation andspecial breathing techniques are emphasised in both. In one passage of his Fawa’ih

!,

Najm al-Dın Kubra records in some detail his own, initially unsuccessful, entry intospiritual retreat (al-khalwa). He discovered through his own experiences that thesuccess of this method (which he later describes as a spiritual “furnace,” kura),36

depends on one’s absolute resolution and on the thoroughness of one’s isolation. In theend, Kubra’s khalwa only went well when he threw himself into it as if irreversibly, asa prefiguration of his own death: “I said: ‘At this very moment I am entering the grave,and will not be raised from it till Resurrection Day. This last bit of clothing is my shroud.So if thoughts of leaving my retreat gain ascendancy, I will rip the clothes from my bodyto shreds so as to be ashamed in front of people and not leave’. Thus my garment wasthe walls of my retreat-cell.”37 In fact, he records that he only left his isolation when urgedby his master. Najm al-Dın Daya, in the chapter on khalwa in his Mirsad

!¯ , emphasises the

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

276 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.

need for complete darkness and sensory deprivation, and explains that this is theprecondition for gaining admittance to the realm of “the unseen” (ghayb): “The roommust be small and dark, with a curtain drawn over the door so that no light or soundpenetrates. The senses will then cease functioning — seeing, hearing, speaking, andwalking — and the spirit, no longer preoccupied with the senses and sensoryphenomena, will direct itself to the world of the unseen. Moreover, once the senses haveceased functioning, the misfortunes that assail the spirit through the apertures of the fivesenses will be effaced by means of zekr [divine invocation] and the negation of straythoughts. The veils that derive from the senses will fall; the spirit will gain familiaritywith the unseen (wa an naw ‘-i

!hijab¯ nız bi-nishınad wa ruh ra

!-¯ ¯ ba-ghayb uns padıd

ayad); and its familiarity with men will cease.”38

Khalwa is thus pivotal in the Kubrawı method. As Daya puts it: “Know that thefoundation of wayfaring on the path of religion and of attaining the stations of certaintyis seclusion, withdrawal, and isolation from men. All the prophets and saints devotedthemselves to seclusion at the beginning of their state, and persisted in it until theyreached their goal.”39 The architecture of the Kubrawı convent (khanqah) seems toreflect the central role of khalwa in the order’s method. It is noteworthy that theimportant Kubrawı centre known as

!Sufiyabad-i¯ ¯ Khudadad, which was built by Simnanı

in his hometown of Simnán in Iran, still stands — albeit minus its dome. A special, sealedchamber known as the “dark room” (tarık khana), distinct in construction and locationfrom the tiny dervish-cells below, is accessible by a stairway. It is windowless, and theentrance door, when closed, cannot even be detected from outside. The entire purposeof the environment is to isolate the resident completely from normal sensory in-puts. Theintention here is virtually identical with that of the “dark retreats” of the Tibetan tradition,especially intended for yogic practices pertaining to inner light. In Tucci’s words: “Thehermits of this school [rNying ma pa] have themselves enclosed in cells or caves intowhich not even the smallest ray of light can enter. Such caves for hermits are called ‘darkretreats’ (mun mtshams). Their occupants perform a special type of yoga which equatesthe mind (sems) with light (‘od gsal ) . . . They hope that through this practice the innerlight will break forth from the mind which is of the same nature as it and illuminateeverything with its shining radiance.”40

Apart from isolation, the foundation of the yogic practice which Tucci mentions hereis the technique of breath control known as “pot-shaped breathing” or “vase breathing”(Tib., bum ba can, Sansk., kumbhaka). This is described in elaborate detail in therelevant texts. The terminology refers to the shape, during breath-retention, of theyogin’s abdomen. Air which has been inhaled gradually through the nostrils, iscompressed there and is visualised as filling the two side channels of the subtle body,rasana (i.e., pingala! ¯ ) and lalana (i.e., ida

!¯). The procedure ends with the gathering

of the vital breath from these channels, into the central, spinal channel (avadhutior susumna

! !¯), the very “road to nirvana

!¯ .”41 The technique, which is combined with the

visualisation of mantric syllables, is enjoined as the preliminary for the arousal of “innerheat” (Tib., gtum mo), and also for others of the six yogas. As one might expect, the

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

277© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

regulation of breathing (Persian, habs-i dam) is similarly vital to the spiritual disciplinesof the Kubrawiyya. Simnanı, in particular, seems to have been responsible for modifyingthe invocatory technique of his teacher Nur al-Dın al-Isfara’inı, to bring it in step with therhythm of the systolic and diastolic phases of respiration. These rhythms are to beminutely controlled in conjunction with the various phonic elements of the Islamictestimony of faith (Arabic, shahada), which is considered the ideal invocatory formula.As Elias recapitulates: “This formula [la ilaha illa ’Llah, ‘no god, but God’] should beuttered in four beats: (i) With all his strength, the mystic should exhale the la fromabove the navel. (ii) He should then inhale the ilaha to the right side of the breast, (iii)then exhale the illa from the right side to the left, (iv) and then inhale the Allah to thephysical, pineal heart (dil-i sanubarı i-¯ ¯ shakal ) which is on the left side of the breast. Thiscauses the energy of the word Allah to reach the heart and burn all desires containedtherein. From this pineal heart, which is simply a piece of flesh and the abode of theanimal spirit, a window is opened to the real mystical heart. From here the light of faithshines forth.”42

The reference to “the real mystical heart” in this passage is vital. It refers to thecardiac subtle center (al latıfa- ¯ al-qalbiyya) in the human chest. This is, in fact, one of acomplex, sevenfold series of “subtle substances” or centers (lata

!¯ ’if ) which Simnanı

explores in his writings. There is no leeway here to enter into the details of thismystico-physiological scheme, which is probably the main historical legacy of theKubrawiyya to Sufı¯ doctrine, especially in the orders of the eastern sector of Islam.The features of this extraordinary system have been presented by Corbin, Elias andothers.43 Simnanı’s theory is a major step in the graduated historical development ofthe term latıfa¯ , involving its ever greater elaboration and wider application. Najm al-DınKubra’s works assume an older, simpler scheme of lata

!¯ ’if which is fourfold, namely, the

heart (al latıfa- ¯ al-qalbiyya), the spirit (al latıfa- ¯ al ruhiyya-!

), the intellect (al latıfa- ¯al-‘aqliyya), and the mysterium (al latıfa- ¯ al-sirriyya). In Najm al-Dın Daya Razi’smysticism a fifth center, the arcanum (al latıfa- ¯ al-khafiyya), is presented. This is locatedbetween the eyes at the forehead. Two more centers are then employed in Simnani’steaching, namely, the lowest, basal center (al latıfa- ¯ al-qalabiyya) and the highest,cranial center (al latıfa- ¯ al haqqiyya-

!, literally “the subtle substance pertaining to the

Real,” i.e., to God).Each of these paranormal organs involves a photism of distinct color which is

perceptible to the adept. Moreover, Simnanı co-ordinates each level with particularmeta-cosmic realities from whose “emanations” they are in fact generated, and also withvarious human societies and categories. An example is the basal center which resultsfrom dominant emanations of the divine throne (al-‘arsh), and is represented by humanbeings capable of speech but otherwise at a level close to animality.44 Moreover, insofaras each center is identified with a given Qur’anic prophet in a chronological develop-ment from Adam to Muhammad

!, both the Qur’an and the sacred history to which it

alludes can be interpreted employing the Simnanian system of lata!

¯ ’if .45 In all this, theapplications of the system are seen to be potentially inexhaustible in scope, taking in

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

278 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.

occult physiology, cosmology, spiritual anthropology, sacred history, and scripturalhermeneutics. The system later becomes part of the teaching and methodology of orderslike the Naqshbandiyya in the Indian Subcontinent, and is further expanded by figureslike Ahmad

!Sirhindı (d. 1625 CE) and Shah Walı Allah al-Dihlawı (d. 1762 CE) with his

demandingly complex, three-tiered model with fifteen elements.46

In its basics, this distinctive mystico-physiological system is strikingly close to whatis found in the six yogas of Naropa. Again, there is a gradual historical exploration of acore idea: that of the presence, and transformational potential, of various supernaturalplexuses inherent in the human body. Rather like the pre-Simnanı system we find inKubra’s texts, Tibetan yoga mainly uses an earlier, simpler, fourfold series of centers(padma, or cakra), which has yet to undergo expansion into the complex sevenfoldsystem familiar in later Hindu Tantra. At the navel is located the “Wheel of Emanation,”in the center of the chest is the “Wheel of Truth” or “Wheel of Phenomena,” at the throatis “Wheel of Enjoyment,” and at the crown of the head is the “Wheel of Great Bliss.” Buta further cakra is sometimes included at the genitals, called the “Wheel of thePreservation of Bliss,” and even a series of four from the navel to the genitals.47 In short,the basic elements of the classic, cakra-based physiological structure, are alreadyreferred to in Naropa’s six yogas: the right, left and central channels; the ganglia or“knots” (Sansk., granthi, Tib., rtsa mdud) where the side channels intersect periodicallywith the central channel; the cakras themselves, which are four or rather more innumber; the association of various colors and shapes with each cakra, visualized asspoked wheels or lotuses with different numbers of petals; and the linkage of each tosome particular mantric syllable.48

A feature of the classic cakra system which is seemingly “notable by its absence” inNaropa’s six yogas — also in the Kubrawı system of lata

!¯’if — is the famous idea of a

feminine, coiled, lightning-like energy (kundalinı ). Though the imagery is alreadyreferred to in rather earlier Saivite texts such as the 8th century CE Srı Tantrasadbhava,it remains mysteriously absent from Tibetan yoga. Where the Naths and other Hinduyogins framed the process in terms of the awakening of this snakelike energy, then itsascent and trans-piercing of the cakras (

! !satcakrabheda ), till it emerges through the

“aperture of Brahma” (brahmarandhra) at the crown of the head, Naropa and hiscommentators like Tsongkhapa, instead prefer to think of the process as a melting ofthe “bodhimind substance.” Through visualizing the form of the subtle body, mantricsyllables and persistence in vase-breathing, the said substance is melted within thevarious channels and is brought into the head. From the crown cakra is then arousedthe first of four kinds of ecstasy, and so on, down through the other three maincakras.

Nevertheless, it is not hard to see the presence ofkundalinı, despite the absence ofthe nomenclature, which suggests that these different mystico-physiological systemsindeed articulate a similar or identical experience. The Tibetan terminology clearly refersto a volatile, feminine energy — the name for “inner heat” yoga (as mentioned earlier)being gtum mo (“fierce lady”), in turn translating the word candalı¯ , from Sanskrit

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

279© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

!cand! !

, “to be wrathful.” Details in the relevant texts also use images which aretantalizingly suggestive ofkundalinı . They speak of an internal entity akin to a verticalstroke in Tibetan script (Tib., a thung, the “half Ah” or “short Ah”), situated four fingersbelow the navel, “in hair-like outline, floating, and half a finger in height, of reddishbrown colour, hot to the touch, undulating and emitting like a cord moved by the windthe sound of ‘Phem! Phem!”49

Then through the appropriate visualisations and breathing exercises, the experienceunfolds in steps, according to the same text, as follows, “. . . from the hair-like short-A[h],a flame of fire, half a finger in length and very sharp-pointed, flareth up. Think that theflame is endowed with the four characteristics, [of the median nerve as visualized,namely, perpendicularity, transparent brightness, redness, and vacuity]; and that itresembleth a revolving spindle. Think that with each such breathing the flame riseth uphalf a finger higher; and that by eight such breathings it reacheth the navel nerve-centre.With ten such breathings, all the petals of the psychic-nerves of the navel-centre willhave been filled with psychic-fire. With ten more breathings, the fire moveth downwardand filleth all the lower parts of the body, even to the ends of the toes. From there withten more breathings, it burneth upward and filleth all the body up to the heartpsychic-centre. With ten more breathings, the fire passeth up to the throatpsychic-centre. With ten more breathings, it reacheth the crown of the head.”50

Discussions like this one show quite forcefully that although thekundalinı is formallyabsent from the Tibetan six yogas system, it is substantially present. The entiredescription above gives expression to the idea of arousing a fulgurant, snakelike powerin the adept’s abdomen, and then its ascent, through perseverance in breath-control, intohigher and higher centers in the body.

What then of the Islamic analogue of this yoga, i.e., the mystico-physiological systemof the lata

!¯’if employed by the Kubrawiyya and their successors? Pertaining as it does, to

a religious universe quite distinct from that of these Indic models, we should not expectto find any parallel of kundalinı which is as conspicuous as the one above.51 Yet theformal, civilizational separation also heightens the significance of any comparablefeatures. Even a relatively inexplicit parallel will demand attention and be dispropor-tionately suggestive of a single, coherent body of experience underlying these discretemystical traditions.

In drawing out a possible correspondence, the aforementioned Kubrawı “idealism”and emphasis of internality must be borne in mind. This relocates Kubrawı accounts ofexternal, cosmic flights to God-realization, within the adept. Moreover, in some of theseaccounts, the soul itself (Arabic., nafs, literally “breath”) — the very lebensgeist, with itsambiguous passions and energies — is said to constitute the means of ascension. Assuch, theSufı¯ ’s soul is not infrequently equated with the quasi-animal upon which theProphet Muhammad

!journeyed through the layers of heaven to his encounter with the

godhead in the paradigmatic event known as al-Mi ‘raj (“the Ascension”). This entity,the very instrumentality of ascension and God-realization, is significantly referred toeven in the earliest sources as al-Buraq, an obscure diminutive from the Arabic verb

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

280 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.

!ba-ra-qa, “to shine” or “to flash” — the noun barq meaning “lightning.” The epithetcould, in other words, be rendered as “the little lightning flash.” All this seemsprovocative in the present context.

In short, Kubrawı texts which speak of the process of realisation, drawing onthat unsurpassable archetype of journeys to God in Islamic tradition, the Ascensionof Muhammad

!, read oddly like accounts of kundalinı yoga. The return of the spirit

through higher and higher stages, to its own realm — a microcosmic reditus — cannotbe brought about without the medium of this ambiguous, even chthonic, lebensgeist-energy, spoken of as the Sufı¯ ’s own “little lightning flash” or Buraq. A good instance ofthis association of ideas is the following, from Daya:

“The soul [nafs ] will quit the station of commanding and come to that of tranquillity,and become a mount for the pure spirit. Traversing the stages and stopping places of thelower and higher worlds, Boraq-like (Buraq

!sifat ) it will bear the spirit to the elevation

of the Highest of the High, to the lofty degree of the distance of Two Bowstrings, andthus to become fit to receive the summons of ‘Return to thy Lord, well-pleased andwell-pleasing [Qur’an 89:28].’

This feeble and powerless one says:

Once bestial temper turns from thy soulThe bird of thy spirit returns to the nest.The vulturelike spirit strives to ascend,Alights on the king’s arm, and turns to a falcon.

The spirit, when returning to its proper world, has need of the Boraq of the soul, for itcannot go on foot. When it came to this world, it was mounted on the Boraq of theinhalation (Buraq-i nafkha): “and I inhaled in him of My spirit [Qur’an 15:29].” Now,when it is to leave for the other world, it needs the Boraq of the soul to convey it to the[upper] extremity of the realm of the soul. The soul, in turn, has need of the two attributesof passion and anger in its journeying, for it cannot move either upward or downwardwithout them . . .”52

With Daya’s involved reference here to the Prophet’s Mi ‘raj, the discussion comesfull circle: the prospect of an original “yogic” dimension to Islam. To repeat the idea withwhich we began: for historical reasons that include the stimulus of Buddhist competi-tion, this on-going dimension comes to fullness in the Kubrawiyya, but has deep rootsreaching back seven hundred years earlier to the spiritual life of the Prophet. The latter’sAscension is of course an event of unique magnitude from the Muslim viewpoint. But inthe context of this discussion and its main hypothesis, it stands out as a central exampleof a topos within the Sıra literature which is open to a radically “yogic” interpretation. Byway of conclusion, a small but demonstrative sample of the relevant features of theAscension narrative may be mentioned.

Statements traced to his young wife ‘A’isha indicate that some Muslims haveconsistently viewed the Mi ‘raj event as spiritual, and not necessarily the corporeal flightenvisioned by the mainstream tradition: “The apostle’s body remained where it was but

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

281© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

God removed his spirit by night.”53 The role of the creature called al-Buraq in thesources, has already been noted. It is spoken of in the Sıra as having a face withpartially human features, and is now often thought of, and depicted as, female. As if toconfirm the power and volatility of its nature, traditional narrations state that theProphet initially experienced difficulty in mounting al-Buraq but succeeded with thearchangel Gabriel’s assistance.54 In this, there may be some analogy with the notion ofharnessing the kundalinı . The Prophet is next led up through a stepped series oflevels, beyond the cosmos and into the divine presence — again suggesting theascension by stages, ofkundalinı. The now prevalent, later formulations of Laya-Yogaviewkundalinı as rising through a seven-fold set of cakras, and the Prophet’s journeywas also specified, from the earliest accounts, as mounting through seven levelsof heavens, which indeed constitute the cosmology assumed by the Qur’an.Muhammad s!

’ upward journey is moreover said to have involved the ascent of anextremely fine ladder which extends through a gateway. The ascent of this ladder issignificantly identified in the sources as prefiguring the process of dying. As theProphet himself is quoted: “. . . a ladder was brought to me finer than any I have everseen. It was that to which the dying man looks when death approaches. My compan-ion55 mounted it with me until we came to one of the gates of heaven . . .”56 Comparethe idea, so central to the subtle physiology of yoga, of the aforementioned ultra-finecentral pathway known as the susumna

! !¯ or in Buddhist equivalents as avadhutı

(Tib., Uma-tsa). To traverse this subtle pathway, the “gateway of Brahma” (Sansk.,Brahmadvara) must also be passed through at its lower extremity.57 The Thödol andother texts indeed state that this is the same route that is taken in death.58

Fear of “parallelo-mania” prevents further pursuit of such echoes. But one particu-larly suggestive pronouncement by the Prophet concerning his Mi ‘raj experience maybe noted by way of completion. In transmitting contemporary discussions of howthe Mi ‘raj was a fully real event despite apparently occurring at the time of sleep, IbnIshaq!

¯ quotes Muhammad s!

’ remarkable statement: “My eyes sleep while my heart isawake” (tanamu ‘aynaya wa qalbı yaqzan

!¯ ).59 The assertion is also found elsewhere in

the Sıra as one of a series of responses by the Prophet Muhammad!

to Jewish rabbis whowere cross-questioning him: “[The rabbis said] ‘Tell us about your sleep.’ [The Prophetreplied] ‘Do you not know that a sleep which you allege I do not have is when the eyesleeps but the heart is awake?’ [The rabbis replied] ‘Agreed.’ [The Prophet continued]‘Thus is my sleep. My eye sleeps but my heart is awake.’ ”60 Here, the state of “cardiacwakefulness” is crucially claimed by Muhammad

!as his norm, and not just his mode of

consciousness on the Night of the Ascension. There are in fact statements to the effectthat such is the permanent consciousness of prophets in general.

These allusions are of great interest in the present context. The Prophet is,incidentally, quoting one of their own scriptures to the Jewish scholars — in fact one ofthe most exquisite and mystical Biblical texts of all, the Song of Songs (Hebrew, Shırha-Shırım). The words there are spoken by the beautiful Shulamite girl and refer to theheightened, in fact permanent, nature of her awareness of her royal lover: “I sleep, but

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

282 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.

my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, mysister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks withthe drops of the night . . .”61 By a transference of meaning, the Shulamite’s erotic longingrefers to a prophet’s or realised mystic’s permanent consciousness of the divinepresence, maintained even in the state of physical sleep. This perpetual awareness isalso, of course, an ultimate goal of yoga (whether Hindu or Buddhist). A fundamentaltripartite distinction is made in yogic discourse between the states of waking (jagrat),dream-sleep (svapna), and deep sleep (susupti

!). Beyond these is the state of

super-consciousness — the goal of the transformational disciplines of yoga — known asthe “fourth” (turıya).62 Muhammad s

!’ statements about his permanent inward wakeful-

ness, even in states of sleep, can thus be read as expressions of his realization of theturıya. The Tibetan Buddhist analogue of these ideas is found pre-eminently indream-yoga (Tib., rmi lam) and its mastery, leading to the awareness of the primal clearlight (Tib., ‘od gsal ) beyond either sleep or waking consciousness: “If one attain masteryof this process, then, whether in the sleeping-state or in the waking-state, one realizethboth states to be illusory; and all phenomena will be known to be born of the Clear Light,and phenomena and mind will blend.”63

Endnotes1. Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (Princeton: Bollingen, 1990), 3.2. A surprising number of Buddhist texts were already circulating in Arabic translations in the

relevant period. Rashıd al-Dın Fadl!

Allah Hamadhanı in his famous Jami ‘ al-Tawarıkh, completed in704/1305, states that eleven Buddhist works were available in translations in Iran, including variousMahayana sutras. Texts pertaining to yoga, sensu stricto, are another matter. These seem to be mainlyHindu in background and only available to a Muslim readership from a much later period, under theMughals and Safavids. A notable exception is the Arabic version of Patañjali’s Yogasutra by al-Bırunı(d. 442/1050). See S. Pines and T. Gelblum, “Al-Bırunı’s Arabic Version of Patañjali’s Yogasutra,”Bulletin of the School or Oriental and African Studies [BSOAS ], vol. 29, no. 2 (1966), 302–325; S. Pines,T. Gelblum, al-Bıruynı and Patañjali, “Al-Bırunı’s Arabic Version of Patañjali’s Yogasutra: A Translationof the Second Chapter and a Comparison with Related Texts,” BSOAS, vol. 40, no. 3 (1977), 522–549;S. Pines, T. Gelblum, al-Bırunı and Patañjali, “Al-Bırunı’s Arabic Version of Patañjali’s Yogasutra: ATranslation of the Third Chapter and a Comparison with Related Texts,” BSOAS, vol. 46, no. 2 (1983),258–304; and S. Pines, T. Gelblum, al-Bırunı and Patañjali, “Al-Bırunı’s Arabic Version of Patañjali’sYogasutra: A Translation of the Fourth Chapter and a Comparison with Related Texts,” BSOAS, vol. 52,no. 2 (1989), 265–305. In a series of articles, Carl Ernst has detailed the history of the availability of yogatraditions and texts to Sufis, most notably the “Pool of Nectar” (Amrtakunda

! ! !), replete with details of

the practices of the Nath yoga tradition in particular, including breath-control techniques. However,Ernst in fact rejects as a later fiction the account that it was first translated into Persian and Arabic asearly as 1210 CE in Bengal by a certain Rukn al-Dın al-Samarqandı and a scholar-yogin called Bhrgu

!.

The version known as Bahr!

al Hayat-!

¯ by Muhammad!

Ghawth Gwaliyarı¯ ¯ ¯¯ (d. 1563 CE) was froman Arabic translation produced considerably later than this date, by an anonymous Muslim scholaraided by another scholar-yogin named Ambhuanath. See “Putative Literary Transmission of the Pool ofNectar” in C. Ernst, “The Islamization of Yoga in the Amrtakunda

! ! !Translations,” Journal of the Royal

Asiatic Society, Series 3, 13:2 (2003), 199–226, especially 203–4. Also see C. Ernst, “Situating Sufism andYoga,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 15:1 (2005), 15–43. Also see his “Being Careful with

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

283© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

the Goddess: Yoginis in Persian and Arabic Texts,” in P. Chakrovorty and S. Kugle (eds.), PerformingEcstasy: The Poetics and Politics of Religion in India (forthcoming). A third major yoga text to mentionis the Yoga Vasistha

!!¯ ( Jug Basisht) which was, again, only available to a Muslim readership in a later

period — translated from Sanskrit into Persian by Nizam!¯ al-Din al-Panipatı in the late 16th century

CE at the behest of the Mughal emperor Jahangir while still crown prince. Presently it was evencommented on by a major “Indophile” figure from the School of Isfahan, Mır Findiriskı (d. 1641 CE) inhisUsul

!¯ al Fusul-

!¯ . The Indian Mughal prince, Dara Shikuh (d. 1659 CE) was in turn responsible for a

number of translations of Hindu sacred texts, notably the Upanisads!

and the Bhagavad-Gıta.3. In Persian it was also sometimes called dın-i shamkunı (sic., with metathesis).4. Simnanı, Chihil Majlis, ed. N.M. Hirawí (Tehran: Intisharat-i Adíb, 1987), 84.5. Jamal J. Elias, The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnanı

(Albany: State University of New York, 1995), note 16, 18. Somnath is better known as the Hindu (infact Saivite) complex which was sacked and looted by Mahmud

!¯ of Ghazna in 416-17/1025-6. Some

Buddhist presence at Somnath was noted long ago in scholarship on the Hindu site, e.g., W. Postan,“Notes of a Journey to Girnar,” Journal of the Asiatic society of Bengal 7:2 (1838), 865–87, cited in R.Thapar, Somanatha (Verso, 2005), 21. However, it seems more likely that the name Somnath, as the 13th

century Parinda’s monastery, is a mistake. Is it possible that the contemporary Buddhist center inquestion was instead the great monastery of Somapura in Bengal, a major center of Tantric Buddhism,visited by many Tibetan monks, and in fact the home for many years of the great 11th century CE Tantricscholar Atisa? Somapura seems to have survived into the 13th century CE, tolerated (if neglected) by theHindu Sena dynasty, and falling outside the territory conquered by the aforementioned Muhammad

!b.

Bakhtiyar al-Khaljı when he killed the last Sena king, Laksmana! !

Sena.6. Translated by G.H. Mullin, The Six Yogas of Naropa (Ithaca and Boulder: Snow Lion

Publications, 1996).7. The link of Naropa’s “six principles” yoga with Yogacara thought is supported by the fact

that the six yogas are mainly associated with the Kagyu sect (Tib., bka’ brgyud ) whose practices anddoctrinal perspective owe much to Yogacara. Modern Kagyu teachers have indeed overseen a seriesof English translations of texts by the great 4th century CE founder of Yogacara, Asanga. However, thecomplex history of the doctrinal affiliations of the various schools prevents an unqualified attributionof the six yogas to Yogacara premises. Thus, one of the main authorities in the six yogas through hisaforementioned book “The Three Inspirations,” was Tsongkhapa Chenpo (d. 1419), founder of thereformist Geluk-pa who officially uphold the superiority of the Madhyamaka over the Yogacaraschool.

8. W.Y. Evans-Wentz (ed.), The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1980), 11.

9. Mullin, op. cit., 36–39.10. F. Meier (ed.), Die Fawa’ih

!al Gamal-"

¯ wa Fawatih!

¯ al Galal-"

¯ des Nagm"

ad-Dın al-Kubra(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1957), para. 60, 28.

11. “The [internal] substance only witnesses its own origin, it only wills its own origin, and it onlyfeels nostalgia for its own origin” (inna ’l-jawhara la yushahidu illa ma‘danahu wa la yurıdu illama‘danahu wa la yahinnu

!illa ila ma ‘danihi ). Ibid., para. 11, 5.

12. Wa yahussu!

’l-sayyaru tawalluda ’l-anwari min jamı ‘i badanihi ka-dhalika wa rubbamayukshafu ’l hijabu-

!¯ ‘an kulli ‘l-ananiyyati fa-tara bi-kulli ‘l-badani al-kulla. Ibid., para. 66, 31.

13. Hamid Algar (tr.), The Path of God’s Bondsmen from Origin to Return: A Sufi Compendium byNajm al-Dın Razı, known as Daya (Delmar: Caravan Books, 1982), 103.

14. Ibid., 179.15. Ibid., 298.16. Ibid., 295.17. W.Y. Evans-Wentz (ed.), The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1980), 92.18. Ibid., 96.

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

284 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.

19. It may be noteworthy that many modern accounts of “near death experiences” mentionapproaching an apparently identical radiance which, while brighter than any light hitherto seen by thephysical eye, is yet un-dazzling. Attempts have been made to explain this through the progressivedisinhibition of neuronal activity in the visual cortex of the brain, as a consequence of anoxia. S.Blackmore, Dying to Live: Science and the Near-Death Experience (London: Grafton, 1993), 81 ff. Anobjection to this might be that Sufis and yogins systematically cultivate, and report having, the samephotic experience while alive — the precise point of “clear light yoga’ (‘od gsal ) in the six yogas system,being for the adept to move beyond the semblant (i.e., visualized) clear light, and to experience actualclear light.” See Mullin, op. cit., 81 ff.

20. G. Tucci, The Religions of Tibet, tr. G. Samuel (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1988), 62–63. Italics mine.

21. H. Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, tr. Nancy Pearson (New Lebanon: OmegaPublications, 1994), 61. The brief anonymous treatise referred to by Corbin had been studied over acentury earlier by Fleischer, Ueber die farbigen Lichterscheinungen der Sufi’s, according to the LeipzigMs. 187: De veriis luminibus singulorum graduum Suficorum propriis. See Zeitschrift der DeutschenMorgenlandischen Gesellschaft, vol. 16 (Leipzig, 1862), 235–241.

22. E.g. A. Wayman, “A Defense of Yogacara Buddhism,” Philosophy East and West, vol. 46,number 4 (October 1996), 447–476.

23. E.g., J.L. Garfield, Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

24. Sthiramati’s nirakara-vijñana-vada was basically compatible with the “void doctrine”(Sunyavada) of the Madhyamaka school, and was presently synthesised with it by Santiraksita

!´¯ (d. 788).

25. For a recent collection of studies on the history of idealism in Western philosophy seeStephen Gersh and Dermot Moran (eds.), Eriugena, Berkeley, and the Idealist Tradition (Notre Dame:University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). Yogacara tends to have been particularly compared with thesubjective idealism of George Berkeley (d. 1753). Idealist trends continue in surprising quarters. Somerecent theories in science propose that the substratum of the physical universe may in fact be some kindof consciousness. E.g., David Bohm has suggested that the “implicate order” of reality (as distinguishedby him from the “explicate order”) is mind-like. He identifies it with the Schrödinger wave field. P.Pylkkanen (ed.), The Search for Meaning (Wellingborough: Crucible, 1989), 59.

26. Evans-Wentz, Tibetan Book of the Dead, 103.27. Ibid., 104.28. Ibid., 166.29. Ibid., 167.30. Ibid., 182.31. Meier, op. cit., para. 67, 32.32. The hadıth¯ is found in slightly different forms in the collections of Muslim, Ibn Maja and

Ibn!Hanbal. See A.J. Wensinck, Concordance et indices de la tradition musulmane 2eme edition

(Leiden: Brill, 1992), 1: 424.33. Algar, op. cit., 304–5.34. The 6th century CE philosopher Olympiodorus of Alexandria, for example, employs this

notion in his commentary on Plato’s Gorgias. But the idea seems to have received its first clearformulation in the Corpus Hermeticum, where it occurs in a variety of ways. See e.g., Libellus VIII,which speaks of “man, who has been made in the image of the cosmos.” W. Scott (ed. and tr.),Hermetica (Boston: Shambhala, 1993), 176–7.

35. Elias, op. cit., 68.36. Meier, op. cit., para. 135, 64.37. Ibid., para. 124, 59.38. Algar, op. cit., 280.39. Ibid., 279.40. Tucci, op. cit., 157–8.

Y -SOGIC UFI!

¯ ¯ H!"!#!$%&'

285© 2010 Hartford Seminary.

41. Mullin, op. cit., 150 ff.42. Elias, op. cit., 127. Elias is paraphrasing a section of Simnanı’s Risala fath

!al-mubın li-ahl

al-yaqın.43. Henry Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, tr. Nancy Pearson (New Lebanon: Omega

Publications, 1994), especially 124 ff. Also J. Elias, op. cit., especially chapter 5, 79 ff.44. Elias, op. cit., 81.45. Simnanı presents this elaborate framework for interpreting scripture in his introduction to the

major Qur’an commentary co-authored by him, Daya and Kubra. See Paul Nwyia (ed.), “Muqaddimatafsır al-qur’an li-‘Ala’ ad-dawla as-Simnanı,” in al Abhath-

!¯ 26 (1973–77), 141–157.

46. See Marcia K. Hermansen, “Shah Walı Allah’s Theory of the Subtle Spiritual Centers: A SufiModel of Personhood and Self-Transformation,” in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, ( Jan.,1988), 1–25.

47. “. . . The three energy channels are envisioned as running up the center of the body, with thechakras at the four upper sites: crown, throat, heart and just below the navel. One can also visualize fourlower chakras, beginning at the navel and going down to the tip of the jewel. Beginners generally workprimarily with the four upper chakras, and most texts on the Six Yogas do not give much detail to thefour lower ones.” Mullin, op. cit., 64.

48. Mullin, op. cit., 143.49. W.Y. Evans-Wentz, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (Varanasi/Kathmandu: Pilgrims

Publishing, n.d.), 192.50. Ibid., 193.51. Significantly, even in later translations of yoga-related texts into languages like Persian, there

is a trend for Sanskrit or Hindi terms for kundalinı to be simply transliterated — suggesting the lackof any clear parallel concept in Muslim languages. E.g. The Persian Kamarupa Seed Syllables: speaksof drawing “. . . shakti up from the navel with magical imagination and thought.” See Ernst, “BeingCareful with the Goddess.”

52. Algar, op. cit., 197–8.53. See, e.g., Alfred Guillaume (tr.), The Life of Muhammad

!: A Translation of Ishaq s

!’¯ Sırat Rasul

Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 183.54. Guillaume, op. cit., 182.55. The companion here referred to is seemingly Buraq, but is usually taken to be the Archangel

Gabriel.56. Utiya bi ’l-mi ’raji wa lam ara shay ’an qattu

!!ahsana!

minhu wa huwa ’lladhı yamuddu ilayhimayyitukum ‘aynayhi idha

! !hadara fa as-

!‘adanı sahibı¯ ¯ fıhi

!hatta ’ntaha bı ila babin min abwabi

’l-sama ’ . . . Ibn Hisham, Al-Sıra al-Nabawiyya, ed. ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salam Tadmurı (Beirut: Daral-Kutub al-‘Arabı, 1408/1987), 4 vols., vol. 2, p. 54. For the English as here quoted, see Guillaume, Lifeof Muhammad

!, 185.

57. Referred to, for example, in the! !Satcakra Nirúpana. The Brahmadvara is defined as “the

entrance and exit of kundalinı in her passage to and from Shiva.” A. Avalon, The Serpent Power(London: Luzac, 1919), part 2, 13.

58. The Bardo Thödol thus speaks of death as the release of the vital force from the mediannerve, through the “aperture of Brahma.” Evans-Wentz, Tibetan Book of the Dead, 91–2. It is perhapsnoteworthy that the close association of “out of body experiences” with “near death experiences” hasbecome a commonplace of modern parapsychological and thanatological research.

59. Guillaume, Life of Muhammad!

, 183.60. Ibid., 255. The statement is also found expressed in the third, rather than first, person, for

example in theSahıh al-Bukharı, Kitabal Tawhıd- ¯ : “tanamu ‘aynuhu wa la yanamu qalbuhu.”61. Song of Solomon 5:2.62. The Turıya is described as “peaceful, auspicious and non-dual” (santam

!´ ¯ sivam

!´ advaitam).

Mandukya! !

¯ Upanisad!

1.7.63. W.Y. Evans-Wentz, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, 223.

T(& M)'#%" W!*#+ • V!#)"& 100 • A,*%#/J)#- 2010

286 © 2010 Hartford Seminary.